I bought a brand new iMac on Tuesday. I'm pretty sure this will come as a surprise to some, so I figured I might as well offer some background information about this choice - maybe it'll help other people who are also pondering what to buy as their next computer.

I've been working with computers since 1979. The first ones were mainframes and min-mainframes than Atari 400s and 800s. When I first used a DOS PC there were no books anywhere besides the users manual that came with it. The same was pretty much true about PC Servers. I had to learn everything by the manuals that came with them and trial and error.

From 1983 to 2001 I hand built quite a few computers for myself and friends and repaired a lot more than that, including the name brand computers we bought for work.

I worked LOTS of hours during that time and got ****ed off when I came home and I had to fix one of my computers. The night that I arrived home and three of my five computers were having problems and it had been a long day, well I'd had enough.

I had friends with Apple computers. My joke then was that I liked them despite their choice in computers. By 1998 I'd known that they had a LOT less hardware and software issues than the computers I used. And I was able to fix any hardware problem blind folded. Literally. All I needed was the parts and the proper screw drivers. Like a soldier I could take them apart and put them back together without breaking a sweat.

Was I happy with Windows computers? No.
Was I happy with IBM's OS/2? A LOT more than Windows but there were issues that would take too long to go into but it just wasn't able to do everything I wanted to. I loved OS/2 but sometimes it just doesn't work out.
Was I happy with BeOS? ABSOLUTELY. BeOS was great. In some ways not as good as OS/2 but in other ways definitely better. If only someone could put those two together ... and then BeOS was dead.
There is Haiku now but it still not mature enough for what I need.
Linux? I started using Linux in the early 90s starting with Corel Linux and WordPerfect for Linux. After that I literally used over 12 different Linux distributions looking for the holy grail, including LinSpire and Ubuntu and RedHat and ... the list would go on and on.

In 1998 I bought my first iMac. It was a Bondi blue CRT iMac with no floppy drive and it has Mac OS 9.
It wasn't perfect. It wasn't great. I still have it. I still mess around with it once in awhile. It wasn't as good as OS/2 or BeOS but Apple was on its ways to what it is now.
Each year Apple computers have gotten better and for the most part so has Apple OSs.

Nothing is perfect. Nothing is perfect. NOTHING is perfect. But some things are better than others.

When Mac OS X came out it wasn't great but you could see that it could be. It was BSD Unix with a graphical shell and there were hints that it was going to have some of the things that I loved about OS/2 and BeOS. Maybe not in the way that you might think about those OSs compared to Mac OS X but for me its true.

I've had five Apple desktop computers since 1998 and one used Apple laptop. I've only had one hardware issue with my 1996 iMac and that was fixed under warrantee when I took it into an Apple store. I left it and picked it up the next day. I've also had four iPhones and three iPads. None of which have had any hardware problems. Zero.

I used to do everything with computers. Program, manage servers and desktops, hardware and software. I was always on call. I worked long hours. I got sick, figuratively and literally, and decided it was time to change jobs and where I worked.

That was 15 years ago. I'm a Systems Analyst and don't work crazy hours anymore but still get pretty good pay. I've got time for hobbies and took up photography and video. It just so happens that Macs work better than Windows with this. Plus in the device and almost always the driver will already be there and Aperture or iMovie will recognize what I am using and they make it easy for me to do what I do with my pictures and video. Well, those and GIMP.

Since I got my first iPad I haven't used my desktop Macs or laptop nearly as much. Then I used them even less when I got my iPad Retina display. I've got almost everything I need between my Canon camera and Sony digital video camera and my iPad to do what I want and amaze my family and friends and friends of theirs with the finished products. Usually they think I hired some company to create what I do. But no. It's just me.

Life is much better since I've never had to worry about hardware failures or very many software issues. For those I still have my job and I get paid to put up with that ****. I've got a life. I want to spend my time being happy and not fixing **** when I'm not being paid. My wife is much happier with me now too. That and our Macs and our iPads. I also get the benefit of playing with BSD UNIX when I went to too.

That's just what works for my wife and I. Everyone has things that work for them and if you love what you use, I'm more than happy for you. If you still like building your own. That's great too. Been there, done that. Got tired of it. Not burned out but it was like spending my life working on Yugos and one day deciding it was stupid and that I'd rather spend my time with BMWs or Mercedes.

Totally with you on this, I've been playing with 486sx PC towers and windows 3.1 since 1990s and have always been pro windows and anti apple.

I think I just got bored with destroying towers to put better hardware and software into them every few months to keep them top notch, and to be fair, as many of you will admit, it can become a very expensive hobby.

I love music and photography, and found the likes of garageband and aperture absolutely brilliant (although I do have photoshop elements on my hard drive too), I feel that the likes of ilife really work, ntuitive and sometimes you don't want to be into the guts of software(and sometimes hardware) to do a specific job.

The fact is that some of the software that apple brings to the table is brilliant, however I hope that osx does not eventualy turn into iOS.

I think I just got bored with destroying towers to put better hardware and software into them every few months to keep them top notch

You just stated right there your own failure: you kept upgrading the thing every few months. Some people seem to have the mentality that if it is possible to keep upgrading the thing constantly then you're required to do so.

I built my PC something around 1.5 years ago and the only upgrades I've bought so far have been a new display, a USB 3.0 card and an SSD, and I haven't yet even placed that USB 3.0 card in there because I'm waiting for my SSD to ship. Haven't had any need to constantly open the thing up or fiddle with the hardware, the only thing I do is open it up about once a year to clean up all the dust inside -- something that wouldn't even be possible with iMacs.

With photos, you took too much to heart the then-old propaganda, when moving to Macs at the end of 90s (times when they were clearly an inferior and more expensive product, just kept alive by a bit insane user base - readily upgrading to that inferior product to "help save Apple", even openly refusing to pirate it http://www.forbes.com/1997/08/08/column.html ); both major platforms are comparable for quite a while (except, one gives much better value of course...)